


Carnivore

by spinsters_grave



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cryptids are Real, Gen, Major OCs, Once Upon A Paladin event, Pre-Voltron AU, Technically a High school AU, beasts of the wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsters_grave/pseuds/spinsters_grave
Summary: Whichever northern “M” state this was, it was cold, and the trees were too bare. Keith was out of his depth and so close to finding a secret.





	Carnivore

Sunsets were tricky out here. There were either too many clouds that covered the sky, or Keith’s back would be turned for the ten minutes it took for the sun to sink behind the horizon. He had a theory—there weren’t  _ too many _ clouds on those days, there was  _ one big cloud that covered the entire county from horizon to horizon, and it did not let a single star shine through its holes.  _ The government kept it all hush hush. 

 

It had only been about a week. Keith’s guardians this time around were alright, but they seemed to step on eggshells around him, like he was something delicate. You don’t go through what Keith had been through only to get called  _ delicate. _

 

The school had enrolled him into an environmental sciences class. He had been more worried about his credits transferring over; it was a problem sometimes. Still, the environmental sciences was boring. He’d taken the class before—the AP version, even. This class was just full of freshmen. 

 

Later, he would talk with the counselor and see what classes he could transfer to. This late in the semester, he didn’t have much hope. 

 

For now, the window called to his attention. Outside, the singular cloud painted the sky shades of gray; the nearest wing of the school building created a border inside a border like they did to movies sometimes. The trees were skeletal. Where Keith had come from, the trees usually kept their leaves during what they called winter. Didn’t mean there weren’t any dead bushes or jutting branches down there, but here, the trees were—colder. They pierced the soft underbelly of the ironclad sky. 

 

“Welcome to Ramstein,” someone hissed in his ear. “What branch is your dad in?”

 

Keith didn’t move his head, only his eyes, to look at the girl that shared his table. She had tired eyes, the kind with seven different layers of bags and more all-nighters than she could count. 

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith murmured back, his jaw working awkwardly from where it rested on his supporting hand. 

 

“You’re one of the civvies, then,” the girl said, losing interest. She shifted back to sit on her stool (what kind of school has stools instead of chairs?) and fiddled with the pencil in her hand. She wasn’t taking notes, that was obvious, but Keith had no idea what she was  _ actually _ doing. He was saved from the mystery of her when another student asked a question, and the teacher accidentally played a video on the SmartBoard while trying to answer it. 

 

* * *

 

After environmental science was supposed to be lunch, if Keith knew where the lunchroom was, and if he had money in his account to buy anything, which he doubted. He didn’t especially want to find out the answer to either of those questions. He didn’t want to spend the next forty-five minutes wandering around either, though, but resigned himself to it anyway. 

 

He found the girl from environmental sciences in another classroom; he had only poked his head in when he heard noises coming from it, something jovial and joking. The girl waved at him, then said something to her friends; she sat on a desk, holding a sandwich. 

 

Keith stood there for a minute more, watching them, thinking about how  _ I’m never going to have anything like that, will I? _ Typical teenage angst. No one belongs. How did that one My Chemical Romance song go? 

 

Before he knew it, lost in his thoughts, the girl was in front of him. She greeted the teacher as an aside, but considered Keith carefully; she was short, but carried herself with confidence, loud and proud. 

 

“Don’t just stand there,” she decided. “I’m Stephanie. Over there is Hot Leo, Julia, and Matthew, and Sophie. We kind of make it our thing to adopt new kids, sometimes.”

 

“I’m Keith,” Keith said. 

 

“Hi, Keith,” came a small chorus from the group of friends, like some kind of lunchroom alcoholics anonymous. 

 

“Tell us where you… lived last,” Stephanie said, leading him deeper into the classroom, where she seemed to hold court. “Do you want some grapes? I’m not going to eat them.”

 

“Sure,” Keith said, because he wasn’t one to deny free food. “Somewhere near California, or New Mexico?”

 

“Oh, I have a friend in Arizona,” Stephanie said. “Nice, nice. Where in California?”

 

Keith wasted the entire lunch period with Stephanie and her entourage. They asked him everything, or about most things at least; his schedule—he had literature with Hot Leo—his family, then when they learned he kind of moved around a lot, they told him this was a school mainly composed of military brats, and they all moved around a lot too. “Though since this is senior year for us, we’re probably going to stay through the whole year. None of us are scheduled for the next PCS season, and this is a nice school to graduate from,” Julia said. 

 

“Makes it a bitch of a time to get recommendation letters though,” Sophie snarked off to the side. They laughed. 

 

Stephanie leaned in real close, her breath ghosting against Keith’s ear. “You hear about Carnivore yet?”

 

Keith blinked, then turned to look at her. “People usually learn about carnivores in elementary school, yeah.”

 

“Not those carnivores,” Stephanie said. “C’mon, guys, back me up here.”

 

“Steph’s been here longer than any of us,” Matthew said, leaning into Keith’s space. He was pinned on both sides. “She tells everyone about this  _ Carnivore _ that she supposedly saw in—”

 

“I totally saw it,” Stephanie said, a thin veneer of joking around hiding something Keith saw, but he didn’t know her well enough to see what it was. She turned back to Keith, something alight in her eyes. “Carnivore. I saw what it  _ did _ to Evan Fordsam, you just weren’t here—”

 

“Don’t listen to her,” Matthew said. “She’s a conspiracy nut. None of  _ us _ have seen it.”

 

“Whatever,” Stephanie muttered, something else lurking in the pitch of her voice. “Soph, it’s about time to go to Spanish. See you later, Keith?”

 

“Sure,” Keith said, surprising himself. “Maybe you can tell me about Carnivore later.”

 

A smile cracked across Stephanie’s face. “It’ll change you.”

 

“Spanish, Steph,” Sophie said, rolling her eyes. They packed up their backpacks and their lunchboxes and said their goodbyes to the teacher, who twirled in his spinning office chair to see them off. 

 

Keith realized he didn’t thank Stephanie for the grapes. 

 

* * *

 

Hot Leo passed Keith a note during class. The teacher, trying desperately for some group of kids near the back of the classroom to quiet down, didn’t notice; to be fair, he didn’t do much, the teacher, only sent exasperated glances and sighs their direction. And Hot Leo and Keith sat right next to each other anyway—Hot Leo had insisted. 

 

_ Sorry about Steph, _ the note read in chicken scratch. 

 

Keith scribbled  _ What for _ and slid the note back. 

 

_ she’s got some wild ideas _

 

_ it’s fine. I like conspiracy theories _

 

_ your spelling is A+ _

 

_ thanks _

 

Hot Leo didn’t send another note. He did get the part of Edmund when the teacher assigned roles in  _ King Lear; _ Keith didn’t get anything, but he didn’t expect to. 

 

* * *

 

“Hi Keith,” Stephanie said from inside the classroom. “Did you bring a lunch today, or do you want my grapes again?”

 

“Grapes, please,” Keith said. Steph extended them, and when Keith stretched his hand for them, she yanked them out of his grasp. She didn’t laugh. No one did—no one else was in the classroom, not even the teacher. 

 

“They’re all out to get lunch from the Burger King,” Steph said to Keith’s unasked question. 

 

Granted, Keith didn’t know much about Stephanie yet. Still, something was off in the way she sat on the desk like she had yesterday, or how she did not even crack one smile. 

 

“You were going to tell me about the Carnivore,” Keith said. He shrugged off his backpack so he could cross his arms better. 

 

Steph leaned closer, almost nose to nose with Keith. “It is not  _ the _ Carnivore. No definitive articles for our beast.”

 

“Tell me about Carnivore,” Keith demanded. 

 

Now, finally, Steph smiled, a low and dangerous thing. “It’ll change you.”

 

“I know, I know,” Keith said, growing impatient. “I’m ready.”

 

“No, literally, it’ll change you,” Steph said, dropping the intimidation tactics and the grapes into Keith’s still waiting palm. “It’ll chew you up and spit you back out again, and you’ll be different. You know Evan Fordsam? Well, no, of course you don’t. He moved to Florida two years ago. He’s still alive. We’re friends on Facebook. He used to ride my bus.”

 

For a moment, Steph lost herself in her memories, a distant look crossing her face. “In eighth grade, we were pretty close, right—lived near each other, we’d go and do middle schooler things together. Didn’t lie when I said I knew him better than anyone.

 

“He—his brother told us about how this  _ thing _ was in the woods outside town. Course, we only thought there would be maybe a couple deer, some birds, whatever. Most exotic thing in our little town is the storks that come every summer. So Dave was like,  _ well, if you think that, why don’t you search for it.” _

 

Steph slid off the table in one smooth movement. Keith didn’t realize how invested in the story he was until it stopped, and then he didn’t want it to stop. 

 

“Anyway,” Steph continued, buried deep in her backpack, “we went to look for whatever Dave said was in the woods. I don’t really remember the next part. I mean, the woods, right, we all know the woods—but then there’s this gap in my memory, and the next thing I remember is I’m lying on the forest floor and Evan is gone.”

 

Steph straightened, holding aloft a sheet of lined paper in her hand with some level of victory. “Found it. Listen—I saw Evan on the bus the next morning, and then… that was it. He didn’t even wave back, kind of brushed off my attempts at conversation. Rude.”

 

“Huh,” Keith said deep in his throat. 

 

Steph continued, lost in the story. Her eyes snapped to Keith’s, something burning deep down. “Listen. Evan started hanging out with this group of kids—kids he had never even talked to before, some juniors, even seniors. I think they all have one thing in common. They’re all, like, aloft acting, and mean to everyone here. I think they’ve all been, like, inducted by Carnivore, and that it depends on them bringing people to it so it can eat.”

 

“That’s a theory,” Keith said. He was no stranger to theories—aliens were real, the government had secret underground laboratories where they experimented on aliens, and aliens were eventually going to take over the world. Most of his beliefs rotated around aliens. 

 

“Yep,” Steph said. She held out the sheet of paper to Keith. It was covered in dark pencil marks; hard to differentiate between shadows and the body of the subject. 

 

“I’m not the best artist, but that’s supposed to be Carnivore,” Steph said, pointing at the paper between them. “I’ve had dreams about him.”

 

Keith looked between Steph and her drawing. Carnivore was just a dark blob on the paper, but maybe Steph could see something Keith couldn’t. “Dreams.”

 

“Yeah,” Steph said, and it looked like she was going to say more when the rest of the lunchroom gang poured into the classroom like water breaking a dam. 

 

Sophie and Julia and Matthew and even Hot Leo tsked, almost in unison. “Is she telling you about that cryptid?” Matthew asked, even though it looked like they all knew. 

 

“He believes me,” Steph said, sticking her nose in the air, “unlike  _ some _ people.”

 

In that split second, Steph had changed. Her serious and worried demeanor folded under her bright smile. 

 

“We’ve all heard the story at one point or another,” Sophie said to Keith, putting her paper bag on a table. “Let me guess—Steph has a huge gap in her memory where Evan supposedly disappeared, and then he stopped hanging out with her.”

 

“I mean, in a nutshell, yeah,” Keith said. He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. 

 

“Kind of convenient she didn’t see Carnivore,” Hot Leo said. He sat down next to Keith and offered a couple of his french fries. “Sure, sure, like  _ dreams _ and whatever, but I mean….”

 

“Shun the non-believers,” Stephanie said.  _ “Shun.” _

 

“All I’m saying is, don’t get too wrapped up in all of this,” Hot Leo continued. Keith took a few of his fries in retaliation for Leo being rude. 

 

“I think it’s interesting,” Keith said. He was no stranger to cryptids and theories: the aliens, the Man-with-a-capital-m, come on. It’s all in front of you. 

 

“Thank you,” Steph said, gratification flooding her voice. 

 

“Just wait until you’ve been here a while and heard this like a billion times,” Sophie said, twirling her fries in Keith’s direction. “I mean, every lesbian likes the aliens, myself included. But this Carnivore is kind of not really my style. Like the Babadook.”

 

“Or Pennywise,” Julia cut in. “Aw, babe, I’m sorry,” she said as an aside to Steph’s grumpy face. They cuddled, and Julia used to massive height to lay a kiss on Steph’s cheek. Steph slumped in Julia’s arms and flushed. 

 

“How could you use your friendliness as a  _ weapon,”  _ Steph groaned. Keith couldn’t help it—he laughed. There was something irresistible about the home of the classroom: 

 

Matthew grinned and clapped. “Look at him! He’s laughing! We have successfully adopted the boy. You want some fries?” 

 

It was a feast. 

 

* * *

 

Steph scribbled in her notebook in environmental science during class. Keith tried not to watch, but he knew all the material already, and something about the graphite lines were addicting. The way they appeared on the lined paper, creating where there was nothing before. Small impacts to make something large and beautiful. 

 

They didn’t ride the same bus, but they did live in around the same neighborhood. Keith’s newest set of parents were nice. They set a curfew, but there wasn’t much in this town anyway. They didn’t bother Keith in his bedroom and never called him down to watch television with them. 

 

He was swamped with catch-up work late in the night when the bushes behind his house rustled. Usually this was of no consequence, but it was a windless night, and he hadn’t heard a real sound since his study playlist had run out and he had been too focused to put the music back on. 

 

Keith was lucky enough to have a window that faced the backyard. He flicked on the emergency flashlight and shone it out the window; he wouldn’t like a repeat of what happened last time someone snuck up on him, thanks. Better to catch whoever wanted to scare the new kid in the act. 

 

The bushes rattled and shook. Keith squinted—no one leaped out at him, so win for him. He grabbed a sweatshirt from his bed (it read University of Rome and was stolen from a previous set of parents) and jumped out his window. He was lucky his new house was only one story. 

 

The dew on the grass made his socks wet. He shivered, despite the sweatshirt; whichever northern “M” state this was, was a lot colder than the places he came from. He wasn’t used to it yet, and the sensation of seeing his breath in front of him was new. Oddly thrilling. 

 

When he came up to the bushes separating the backyard and the forest, he suddenly realized he should have brought a stick or anything long and pointy. Oh well. 

 

Keith shoved the bush away. The girl behind it hissed and covered her eyes at the sudden brightness. Keith yelled softly and stumbled back, just in time for Steph to stumble into his backyard, clutching at her eyes. 

 

Okay, so, not what he was expecting. Words exploded from his mouth: “Stephanie? What the hell are you doing out here? It’s the middle of the night!”

 

“I could say the same about you!” Steph howled. 

 

“This is my backyard! What on earth were you doing?”

 

Steph’s head whipped around. “Can’t you hear it? Come on, dude, you gotta hear it. It’s everywhere. It’s shaking the ground. It’s calling and it’s scaring away. If I wait any longer, I’m going to be the latter.”

 

Keith gazed at her face. There was something there that he rarely, if ever, saw in anyone else, but which he saw in himself. Something refreshing to see in someone else. 

 

_ Conviction.  _

 

“Let me grab my shoes,” Keith said. 

 

* * *

 

Steph led them into the forest. The trees were bare and the ground covered in orange leaves; they crunched almost continuously as Steph and Keith walked over them. Keith just wished for something green. They’d left all the green behind when they crossed through the bushes lining the backyard. 

 

They shared no words. Keith was quiet by nature; Steph was entranced by whatever it was she heard. Keith dared not disturb her solitude. He could barely stand to intrude upon it. 

 

“It’s like he’s growling,” Steph murmured to Keith. He jumped. Steph demonstrated what she heard. A low rumble that went on forever, as if she need not take a breath. The rest of the world melted away as Keith stumbled along in the forest, still in his sweatshirt, following the rumble. 

 

It abruptly shut off. Keith jumped back to himself, unaware of how long he had been hearing the sound Steph made; it could have been all night. He was still cold. He kind of missed the sound. He knew he could never replicate it. 

 

“Here,” Steph said. “Carnivore. Oh…” She trailed off, humming some tune high in her head. It leaped high and sank low, jumping in random places and roughening in others. 

 

“What’s going on,” Keith whispered. Steph shut him up with a quick “shh,” but Keith didn’t miss the way she drew closer to him. They gazed around the empty forest, searching for some sign of this Carnivore. 

 

“Say something, say the thing,” Steph hissed. “You know the words.”

 

Keith licked his lips, trying to find some semblance of control. Steph was right. He knew the words, though he hated to say them.

 

“Who I am is not good enough,” he bit out. “Take away everything I am, bring it to an end.”

 

So Keith hadn’t had the best life. So what? He knew he was made for better things than what he came from. He knew he  _ was _ good enough. He knew he could change himself with his conviction and determination and whatever it took to pull himself out of the pit he was born in. 

 

“Could you come and change me?” Steph wailed. “Ohh, this was a mistake.”

 

“You think?” Keith snarked. “Jesus Christ.”

 

His gaze shot up to an empty tree. He was certain he hadn’t directed it there. He saw a hint of a tongue and glittery eyes before his gaze was forcefully pushed away. He whispered “Christ” again. 

 

“Here,” Steph breathed. And indeed, here was Carnivore. 

 

It couldn’t rise to its full height; the sky wasn’t tall enough for it. It stared at the two tiny humans with a sky full of stars arbitrarily encased with a matted mane, though its face was flat and didn’t stay within the lines. It was striped, then it was spotted, all the shifting patterns rich black on rich black. It had a tail like the largest kitten in the world, standing on its end, poofy and sleek and curled in a question mark. 

 

“Carnivore,” Keith breathed, naming the impossible creature in front of him. 

 

When it opened its mouth, Keith saw his reflection distorted in the multitude of teeth, lit by the  light inside the beast. It need not roar, only rumble.

 

Keith stepped back, only to take in the creature better. He wasn’t scared. Carnivore had brushed away those cobwebs with its starry eyes. It closed its beak and regarded him closely. 

 

_ Don’t fit the criteria. You love yourself so much, _ Carnivore thought at him.  _ Keith with no father’s name, nor any mother’s name. You belong in the stars. _

 

Keith breathed once, tightly, too quick. He dared not breathe again in Carnivore’s presence. Perhaps it would eat him, or just take an essential part of him away. 

 

Carnivore did not tear its gaze from Keith. He began to think that perhaps it couldn’t; as if there was some quality to him that trapped endlessly tall beasts with stars for faces. 

 

It blinked—the stars across its visage winked out for a second, and Keith felt its surprise. He peered around Carnivore, who followed with its face, and saw Steph holding an impressively sized branch through the matted mane. 

 

She shrieked and whacked Carnivore again. “For Evan! You monster!” 

 

It blinked again, its massive body trembling. Steph hit it again, and it sank to one knee. Keith would have thought it would take more than a branch (no matter how impressive) to whack the beast. Maybe it was the just anger Steph unleashed on its shifting hide. 

 

Keith blinked. In the microsecond in between closed eyes and open eyes, the branch in Steph’s hand glimmered like a righteous sword. Keith kept his gaze hazy for a second longer, seeing how Steph appeared clad in iron armour to match the sky, weilding a royal sword straight from the stone. 

 

Carnivore didn’t whine, per se, but the hurt rolled off of it in waves. The betrayal, too. _How could you do this to me_ combined with _I deserve this._ _I’m ready for the end_ combined with _I don’t want to die._ Steph howled and shrieked and let nothing stop her. 

 

Carnivore sighed, a gust of warm wind blowing the empty trees back, and slumped. It blinked and clicked its beak a couple times; when it was done fussing, it was around the shape of a small girl Steph and Keith’s own age. 

 

Steph ceased her beating, breathing hard, and dropped her stick. She fell to her knees next to the girl and smoothed her brown hair back, careful to be careful. 

 

You don’t go what Keith went through just to get called  _ delicate, _ but he felt what people felt when they saw something like him when he looked at the girl that had been Carnivore. She deserved to be shielded from the world, but since ignorance had been torn away, it was kind of useless to deny the existence of trouble. 

 

The girl whispered something that almost sounded like “I’m sorry about your friend” to Steph. She turned her head in Keith’s direction, undoing all of Steph’s smoothing. She said something that said like “You’ll find your way to the stars” to Keith, and then she died. 

 

“No,” Steph whispered, Carnivore’s body already decaying. The wind made an appearance, blowing the leaves around in miniature storms. The stars from Carnivore mixed with them, and Keith turned to watch them disappear into the dawn. 

 

* * *

 

She was in his house after school the next day. Keith wasn’t surprised to see her; Mrs Coopersmith was a familiar face over the years. He slung his backpack down and sat in the armchair across from the couch she perched in. The foster parents sat together on a loveseat, watching carefully with old, pale eyes, not saying a word. 

 

“I’m afraid we made a mistake,” Mrs Coopersmith said. The caseworker looked uncomfortable in Keith’s latest house, swallowed by a green couch and surrounded by the light pink striped wallpaper and the decorative plates behind her. She held her clipboard in her lap, her briefcase on one side of her like a shield or a wall separating her from Keith’s latest foster father. 

 

“We mixed up your files with the files from another case,” Mrs Coopersmith continued. She shuffled around some papers and rooted around in her briefcase until she had what she wanted. “This is Killian Knight. He’s from Saint Joseph’s, while you are from Saint John’s. And he is only nine.”

 

“I see,” Keith said, though he didn't, not really. 

 

“Mr and Mrs Richardson are very sorry, but they would rather take a younger child out of the system at this time,” Mrs Coopersmith said. Keith looked at his latest set of foster parents, the way the faded into their living room in the last glimpses of the sun. The iron gray sky had been defeated, at long last. “I hope you understand.”

 

“I do,” Keith said, though he didn’t, not really. 

 

“We should move out tonight. You have friends?” When Keith nodded, Mrs Coopersmith said, “Then I shall allow you to say your goodbyes. You know where they live?”

 

Keith hesitated. “No.”

 

Mrs Coopersmith nodded. “Unpacked at all?”

 

“No. Not really.”

 

She stood up, glad to have the chance to be rid of the room she was in. “Go ahead and get your things. I’ll be outside in the car. Come out when you’re ready.”

 

Keith looked at his foster parents. They avoided his eyes; Keith didn’t blame them. He wished he could say good-bye to his friends. 

 

“Sorry for the mix-up,” Keith said, since his parents weren’t going to say anything. “Be good to Killian.” The old man nodded at him, though he didn’t see it. 

 

It didn’t take long to pack his stuff, and felt like even less. It all fit in a small suitcase and a duffel bag; he’d learned to pack light early on, and never wanted much anyway. He wore his University of Rome sweatshirt out the door into the fading sunlight. 

 

“You can sit in the back,” Mrs Coopersmith said. Keith piled his things in and then himself in. He glanced at the house—the old couple hadn’t come to see him off, and it turned out Keith didn’t care. 

 

They drove off. 

 

Sunsets were tricky out here. Though if you had the time and the reason to catch one, they were stunning. 

 

 

 

 

 

END

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This was written for the [Once Upon A Paladin](https://onceuponapaladin.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr. I wanted to do all of the prompts, but I kind of over-scheduled myself and couldn't do everything. However, this story is one I've wanted to write for _ever._ It's based of of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAMiX5EEbFU) song: Carnivore by Starset. I know, it's kind of edgy, but I was into edgy stuff in eighth grade. I wrote a short story based on the song ages ago, but it was pretty bad, so I decided to just... go for it. I hope you like this story. I means a lot to me. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Come talk to me on [Tumblr!](https://reaadmydumbfanfiction.tumblr.com/)


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